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Please note: These PTR Patch Notes are a work in progress and will be updated with further changes before the release of Patch 1.32.6.

This balance patch has a few different goals in mind. For heroes in general, we’re looking at the costs and sometimes the functionality of hero ultimate abilities, to make them a bit more competitive with a hero’s base line abilities and mana pool.

Items are another big area of this patch. Charged levels 5 and 6 are getting a shake-up to see if we can encourage more usage of these categories going forward.

Additionally, we want to support map makers’ future endeavors by doing a balance pass on the units provided by Mercenary Camps. Finally, in 1v1 matchups, we want to address rifle pushes in Human vs. Night Elf and slightly alter the early game in Human vs. Undead.

There will also be a map pool rotation in this patch. One map per game mode will be rotated out and a new one rotated in. This time around, all of the maps are made by our wonderful community map makers.

ART

Raccoons no longer fade away unnaturally during their death animation in Reforged mode.

Fixed an issue with the Northrend Tree Wall Doodad where they appeared white on the minimap.

Fixed a legacy issue where the Summoned Damage data field for Feedback abilities was capped at 10. This did not affect competitive multiplayer, but was inconvenient for custom map makers.

Unit Balance
HUMAN
MOUNTAIN KING

Thunderclap cooldown increased from 6 seconds to 7 seconds across all levels.

Developers’ notes: Over the past year, the Mountain King’s Thunderclap has been slightly overperforming. While meta changes in 1v1 have seen its usage reduced, it remains a very strong ability in team games. We want to reduce its uptime, which should also allow players to better micro against the Mountain King by giving them more time to reposition between casts.

RIFLEMAN

Attack delay increased from 1.35 to 1.4.

Developers’ notes: This change is focused around the Human vs. Night Elf rifleman push. We don’t inherently want the rifle push to completely disappear nor for riflemen to fall too far in power, but rather for the push to be slightly more equal between the attacker and defender. We’re adjusting the power on both sides, with this being the Human side of the change.

PALADIN

Resurrection mana cost reduced from 200 to 150.

Developers’ notes: Resurrection already has the restriction of waiting for a player’s army to be dead before being cast. At the same time, Paladins often spend much of their mana casting Holy Light to keep units alive in the first place. Reducing the mana cost should help boost the desirability of this ultimate by reducing mana tension.

ORC
SHADOW HUNTER

Big Bad Voodoo mana cost reduced from 200 to 150.

Developers’ notes: We’re reducing the mana cost to help with mana tension. The ultimate itself was not altered at this time, as we want to keep the unique identity of how it works, and instead see if we can push it to be a bit higher of a pick through increasing availability of the spell.

FAR SEER

Earthquake duration reduced from 25 to 20 seconds. Building damage per second increased from 50 to 60. Mana cost reduced from 150 to 125. Earthquake no longer affects friendly units/structures.

Developers’ notes: With Earthquake no longer affecting friendly units, Far Seer players should now have a new slowing option available to them for combat usage. Reducing the duration while keeping the overall damage roughly the same makes responding to a Far Seer casting Earthquake more important and gives a bit more consistency to how much damage it can inflict.

TAUREN CHIEFTAIN

War Stomp cooldown increased per level from 6/6/6 to 7/7/7.

Developers’ notes: War Stomp has shown to be quite powerful in recent months. We believe this is more due to Tauren Chieftain’s ability to more consistently deliver stuns, rather than the damage increase to War Stomp. Simply reducing its damage would be less likely to lower the power of War Stomp. This change doubles the downtime of the ability at level 3, giving opponents more time to counter micro. Additionally, this weakens the Tauren Chieftain’s early game allowing opponents to better push for map control.

Developers’ notes: Witch Doctors are still fairly rare in high-level play. We want to tune up its Stasis Trap ability, and to do that we looked into how it could trap more units. A smaller detonation ring combined with a shorter delay means that units will have less time to move through the area of effect before getting trapped and will have less time to attack the totem when it reveals itself.

NIGHT ELF
KEEPER OF THE GROVE

Entangling Roots cast range on level 3 increased from 600 to 800.

Developers’ notes: While we like where the Keeper of the Grove’s early game power is, we want to give this ability a little boost in the late game. Since armies grow in size, especially in team games, reinstating its old range should give the Keeper a little more ease of use in late game scenarios.

Tranquility Invulnerability time removed. Duration reduced from 15 to 12. Healing increased from 40 to 48.

Developers’ notes: In the past we tried an experiment with Tranquility where we would give invulnerability to heroes when casting channeled spells. After testing it, we’re moving away from this, as we feel it dampens the personality of channeled abilities. Ideally, a channeled ability is very powerful with the drawback of being interruptible. This weakness is also what gives the abilities their character, as finding the right time and place to maximize its power is the main gameplay of using them. Adding invulnerability clouds this, as it now acts more like a normal “cast and forget” spell, but with a little extra bonus on the end. It also acted as anti-debuff mechanic, which was undesirable. While it could be made to not remove debuffs, that would act as a new special case that’s different from regular invulnerability and it would add new complexity for players to memorize. Instead, we want to further reduce the duration of the spell but increase its power of the effect, giving greater benefit even when shut down by opponents, but also encouraging opponents to react quickly to the channeled ability.

DRUID OF THE CLAW

Base damage in bear from increased from 23 to 24.

Developers’ notes: We think bears could use a bit more power in the mid-to-late game in general, especially against Undead. Additionally, with Human vs. Night Elf rifle pushes often occurring right when only a few bears are out, we felt that a slight bear buff would help defenders just that little bit more to keep them in the game.

DRUID OF THE TALON

Gold cost reduced from 145 to 135.

Developers’ notes: Previously Druids of the Talon had their gold cost increased due to balance concerns with them in the Orc vs. Night Elf matchup. The meta has changed quite a bit since then, and so we would like to reduce their cost back to its old value to better encourage their usage.

UNDEAD
CRYPT LORD

Impale can no longer be interrupted. Units knocked airborne can now take damage and be attacked.

Carrion Beetles mana cost increased from 30 to 45. Now spawns 2 beetles at a time, up from 1. Maximum beetles increased from 5 to 6.

Developers’ notes: The being whose might cannot be matched is getting a tune-up in this patch. Previously the Impale ability was hardcoded to be interruptible and make units hit by it invulnerable while airborne. Unlike other channeled abilities, giving a move order to a command group containing a Crypt Lord casting Impale would cause it to move and cancel the ability. This change removes this annoyance. Additionally, making airborne units vulnerable no longer causes units to lose auto attack focus on Impaled units. Airborne units are still untargetable by spells though. This was left in place out of an abundance of caution for introducing unintended bugs.

More developers’ notes: Speaking of bugs, our buff to Carrion Beetles should greatly encourage some new experimentation with this rather rarely picked ability. Now the Crypt Lord can bring about a swarm of summons much earlier and with less mana invested to either scout opponents or make early game pushes. We will be monitoring if this proves to be too much of an issue in the early game, but we feel these changes overall give the ability a much stronger personality.

DEATH KNIGHT

Animate Dead mana cost reduced from 175 to 125.

Developers’ notes: We hear rather frequent feedback that this ability is one of the lower tier ones. Directly buffing it too much at this time seemed unwise, as the Death Knight itself is quite core to Undead’s best strategies, and buffing it further...

It’s been too long since we’ve shared an update on our team’s progress. After a challenging launch, we’ve been regrouping, listening to your feedback, prioritizing the things we need to do for the game, and building a plan to deliver on our next steps. While we’ve been quiet these past few months, know that there is a dedicated and passionate team that’s been hard at work on Warcraft III: Reforged behind the scenes. As our team works toward a roadmap that we can share in the near future; we’d like to start communicating more frequently and meaningfully about our plans, and what’s coming next for the game. Let’s kick that off right now, with the first in a series of articles diving into what the team is focused on.

Ongoing Updates: Bug and Desync Fix Patches​

Since launch, we’ve delivered a series of patches in an ongoing effort to continue fixing bugs and making quality of life changes across Warcraft III. These updates have come at a rate of at least once a month, and include fixes and improvements to art, gameplay, systems, and features across the game, including Campaign, Custom Game, and Versus modes.

Some of our most impactful bugs since legacy Warcraft III involve desyncs which occur when two or more players’ game clients get out of sync and force their game to end prematurely. Due to how disruptive these desyncs can be, a heavy emphasis will continue to be on finding and resolving the most common issues that are causing desyncs. In addition to actively approaching desync issues from different angles, we’re also developing a tool that will better arm us against future desyncs.

Balance Updates​

As with other Blizzard games, our team will also be releasing balance updates for Warcraft III. Our goal is to preserve classic strategies where possible while promoting increased strategic variety. Warcraft III is a hero-focused RTS (Real-Time Strategy game), and we want to celebrate that by providing opportunities for players to open with different Heroes while retaining the unique playstyles inherent to each race and the asymmetry between races.

Each of our balance patches will aim to ensure competitive integrity at the professional level while providing a variety of different strategies for new and returning players of all skill levels. Our first balance patch since launch will be coming to the Public Test Realm (PTR) for testing this week and will feature a bevy of updates. Check out the patch notes soon for all of the details, and don’t forget to provide your feedback once you’ve had a chance to play the changes on the PTR.

Upcoming Features​

In parallel to these ongoing bug fixing efforts and balance updates, we’re also working to deliver features to the game, including Improved Matchmaking, Ranked Ladders, Profiles, Custom Campaigns, and Clans. While we’ve mentioned before that these features are in development, we wanted to start providing more details on the direction we’re taking with each, share some additional insights, and give players an opportunity to provide feedback. Up first, let’s talk about our ongoing improvements to Warcraft III’s matchmaking.

Matchmaking Reforged​

Matchmaking is the system we use to find and match allies and opponents of similar skill. To support this, player skill is tracked using a numerical representation called a player’s Matchmaking Rating, or “MMR” for short. A higher MMR reflects a more skilled player, and matching players with others of comparable skill using their MMRs keeps games as fair and fun as possible.

A player's MMR gets updated at the conclusion of each match, with the amount of points received being dependent on several factors that serve to determine their predicted win chance and an internal value called “variance.” We use variance to represent how confident our system is that a player is rated at the right skill level. When starting out, variance is high because the system doesn’t have enough information yet. Over time, as more games are played, this number will decrease. Higher variance means that there are larger swings in how MMR is adjusted after each match, while lower variance results in smaller MMR changes. Initially, our system will make large changes to MMR to get a player near their proper rating and then refine over time with smaller changes as more games are played. Consistent performance over time will allow a player’s MMR to move up (or down) as they win or lose games.

In a departure from the legacy version of Warcraft III, Reforged now has a per-race MMR in all modes except Arranged Teams which allows for more competitive matchmaking while freeing players to play their favorite races or learn new races without fear of impacting their overall MMR.

Also new, Reforged now features Global Matchmaking for all modes, which allows players to test their mettle against the best Warcraft III players around the world. While this addition is an exciting feature, we are aware of community concerns surrounding latency with Global Matchmaking. In reaction to this feedback, the team has begun rolling out a series of server updates which have reduced the number of high-latency games by over 60% since the week of May 4th. We will continue working to further reduce the occurrence of these high-latency games by implementing additional fixes in the coming weeks, so please continue to give us feedback on your experience.

Warcraft III has three primary matchmaking modes: 1v1, Team Games (2v2, 3v3, 4v4), and Free-for-All (FFA). The goal for all modes is to match players in a way that provides the best games possible while doing so in a reasonable amount of time. To accomplish this, the system starts by looking for a perfect match and slowly loosens its requirements over time if it can’t make that match. The parameters for finding matches and the way these restrictions are relaxed are different for each of the matchmaking modes, so let’s dive into each of them.

1v1​

Among the three matchmaking modes, 1v1 will have the most stringent matchmaking parameters as this game mode is all about individual performance. Reforged to further enable players to find the best and most competitive 1v1 matches. As part of these changes, the matchmaker will now adjust search parameters specifically for higher MMR players to find the most competitive matches, even in exchange for longer queue times. Regardless of MMR, the matchmaker will slowly loosen the search parameters as time goes on in order to find a match. This adjustment will take longer for higher MMR players in order to continue prioritizing finding the most competitive matches. We believe these changes will allow the most competitive 1v1 players to find the best matches that most closely mirror their skill.

Team Games (2v2, 3v3, 4v4)​

For team games, the system is slightly different to account for the fact that the outcome of a team game is not solely tied to the performance of an individual. Team Game players who watch MMRs closely will notice that it takes more games before their MMR settles into its proper range, and they’ll see larger MMR adjustments per game—and for more games—than in 1v1. Since the outcome of the game is influenced by others on the team, the system takes longer to dial in on an individual player’s skill.

In recognition of this, Arranged Teams consisting of a full team of self-organized players are now tracked separately using the team’s MMR rather than a player’s individual rating. Playing games as an Arranged Team does not affect your individual MMR for that game mode or race, so you can switch races freely while within an Arranged Team and not worry about affecting your outside ratings. Since Arranged Teams are tracked separately, they will also have separate leaderboards once Ranked Play arrives to better gauge overall performance.

One of our goals is to provide as many options as possible to allow players to play alongside their friends, and this means minimizing restrictions for party size and MMR. In service of this, players of any MMR can party up together so that—no matter your skill—you can always bring along a friend to play with. Players can also group up as a partial team, allowing friends to queue up together while the matchmaker finds other players to fill the remaining slots to complete the team. Players assembling partial teams will be rated by their individual MMR rather than their team’s MMR.

For the first time, the system will allow Random Teams to be paired against Arranged Teams. This is a departure from the precedent set in the legacy version of Warcraft III, so we wanted to share our thoughts behind this change. Pairing Arranged Teams solely against other Arranged Teams often resulted in very long queue times, especially for highly rated teams. These extended queue times often...

The Cave is a classic RPG that blends the style of World of Warcraft with Diablo II -- created in the Starcraft II engine, using Warcraft III art, and inspired by decades of playing classic Blizzard games.

AUTHOR'S NOTE​

"A mysterious cave, a cast of wonky and unusual characters, and no idea how you got tangled up in this mess. 'The Cave - RPG' will lead you on an epic adventure to figure out 'Why am I on an adventure?' Tears of frustration and awkward looks from loved ones as you sit in your chair and giggle to yourself won't be your only takeaway from this game; I hope. Designed by a gamer, for free, for gamers. If you enjoy RPG games, then this was made specifically for you."
​

HEROES - Watch your hero evolve as you progress through the game. There are 15 final-tier heroes, touting 10 abilities each, with stat allocations based on the path they took to get there.

ITEMS - RNG-based loot with hundreds of potential combinations, unique mods, and drop rates high enough that you're never just grinding for that specific item.

CUSTOMIZATION - Heroes are able to customize/alter the effects of their abilities with glyphs; they have ample stat points to allocate as they wish, special item modifiers, and more abilities than you can shake a stick at, allow you to create and play a hero how you want it.

BALANCE/META - The game is designed in a way that there is no "meta" for builds. No blowing up monsters 2 screens away, no perfect builds. The situations are loose enough and variable enough, that there is no set way to do things. Play how you want to and remember - you can't DPS if you're dead.

WORLD - 35 large zones with a "simple" boss per zone; and 11 dungeons containing 3 unique bosses each, designed to scale and allowing 1-5 players to complete them.

QUESTS - 140 quest, create thick quest density. You will never need to "hang out and farm for a while" to progress. At worst, you may need to explore little, or party up for a tough one. quests are rewarding, and progress the story.

ENDGAME - The story is fun and cute, and not too challenging. The real game begins when you complete the game. To test players' skills over their gear, all regional bosses and dungeons become reinvigorated as "Heroic" forms, with additional strength, abilities, and AI -- as well as a "Legendary Mode" designed to truly test your prowess. Raid bosses bring that concept to an entirely new level, as they spawn randomly in the world, scale from 7-10 players, and have intricate mechanics and strategies.

REPLAYABLE CONTENT - Though the game is intended to end, a few things freshen up the game, if you have invested 1000 hours and just want to keep going. Legendary dungeons have random modifiers to them, and cycle through every hour. An "Endless Waves" dungeon allows you to see how far you can progress against randomly generated waves of monsters and bosses.

Click to expand...

WHAT TESTERS SAID​

"It has the nostalgic feel of old Warcraft 3 RPGs, while blowing every other SC2 RPG out of the water. You can build any hero at least 4 different ways and it'll be viable. The progression to end game is fun and doesn't feel grind heavy at all. End game dungeons are a real challenge and very rewarding. Raid bosses give you and 8-9 friends a real challenge."

"You can literally say you made some advanced AI mechanics, since your bosses abilities are so diverse and well randomized -- so hard to predict in some cases."

"Skill2Win"

"Old School"

"Game's epic as shit"

"RPG, old style, Diablo 2 with World of Warcraft dungeon gear hunting"​